Rivers of history flow through China

From near Tibet to Shanghai, an incredible trip -- before the Games

The last place to be in China during the Summer Olympics is Beijing, the political, educational and cultural centre of 1.3 billion people.

The greatest show on earth is China's coming-out party, and hundreds of thousands of visitors will fill 30 Olympic venues and boost Beijing's already seething population of 17.5 million.

Some estimate the cost of hosting the 29th Olympiad will be $40 billion, making it the most expensive Games to date.

There will be another time to take in the sights of Tiananmen Square, visit the Forbidden City, enjoy The Great Wall and try some exotic restaurants, one of which now has donkey and seal penis on the menu. But not now.

Recently, I asked some well-travelled Chinese-Canadian friends where they would go if they were travelling in China.

They did some hard thinking. After all, China is a land of stunning mountain vistas and surging rivers and has a history perhaps beyond compare.

Archeological evidence suggests the earliest humans in China date from 2.24 million to 250,000 years ago. But its history is told only in terms of the last 6,000 years, which still makes it one of the world's oldest surviving civilizations.

Emperors built fortresses, palaces and places of worship, while more recently, relatively speaking, their scientists invented paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing.

The Old Town of Lijiang, in Yunnan Province and bordering Tibet, was where my friends suggested I begin.

The town, a maze of cobbled streets, rattletrap old wooden buildings, canal bridges and a humming marketplace, dates back more than 800 years and is a UNESCO Heritage Site.

Lijiang, once a confluence for the trade along the old tea horse road, is separated into an old and new town. It's worth finding a hotel in the old town.

The streets bend back on one another, and don't go wandering if you have a train or plane to catch. You will certainly lose your way amid every type of shop imaginable. Leather goods, art, designer clothing and ancient embroidery to take home and frame, are all to be found amid the funky coffee shops and restaurants. But bargain hard.

If you notice women seem to be running the show here, they are the matriarch Naxi, a minority race descended from Tibetan nomads. There are many examples of their homes.

We hired a car and guide for the day in Lijiang and drove along the Jinsha River (known lower down as the Yangtze River) to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Through what is one of the world's deepest gorges, between the Haba Mountains and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, the river surges for 16 kilometres.

The adventurous hike for four days along a trail near the top of the 3,900-metre-high mountains. But we walked along a recently completed, five-kilometre, paved trail to the main rapids.

Next on our tour was the Three Gorges sail on the Yangtze River and our point of embarkation was Chongqing.

The 6,300-kilometre long Yangtze rises in the Himalayas and, fed by many tributaries, makes its way to the East China Sea north of Shanghai.

The river sculpted the legendary gorges over many thousands of years and visitors tilt their necks upwards to marvel at sheer rock walls, forests stretching up to the heavens and occasionally wildlife, such as a small black bear.

The 200-kilometre gorges trip to Yichang can be made in a hydrofoil in about 11 hours. But luxury cruise ships and slower passenger boats visit historic sites and allow time for shopping and a side trips, in four days and three nights.

We travelled in a Chinese boat with an English-speaking crew and thoroughly enjoyed the Chinese food and entertainment. We were less awed by the scenery.

After all, Canada has the Rockies, Niagara Falls and second-to-none coastlines.

We did pass through the locks at the controversial mammoth Three Gorges Dam, and marvelled at its scope.

Due to be completed in 2009, it will back up the river for 550 kilometres, covering countless cultural artifacts and cause the relocation of some two million people.

The dam's hydroelectric production will lessen China's dependency on coal and other fossil fuels and improve transportation links.

But environmentalists are concerned that as the river slows, it will lose its ability to oxygenate and waste from towns and factories will lead to more silt deposits.

The result, they say, could be a gigantic septic "toilet." Endangered dolphins, sturgeon and cranes could be affected. Also, it was kept as a state secret when two dams collapsed in Henan province in 1975, with a loss of some 230,000 lives. Should the Three Gorges Dam fail, it's thought the population of Yichang would be dead within an hour.

Zhangjiajie, in Hunan's Wulingyuan Scenic Area, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, was our next stop.

This is one of the best places to view the world's largest karst landforms.

Some 600,000 square kilometres of karst stretches over eastern Yunnan and most of Guizhou, with extension into parts of Chongqing, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei and Guangdong.

Karst is largely shaped over thousands of years by the dissolving action of water on carbonate bedrock.

As well as mountainous shafts, the geological process creates sinkholes, disappearing streams and complex underground drainage systems and caves. Mountains of karst have long been the favourite subjects of many painters who loved the trees, flora and fauna growing on their vertical shafts.

Shanghai, regarded today as the showpiece of the world's fastest-growing economy, was our final port of call.

Once a fishing and textile town, it grew to importance in the 19th century due to its favourable port location and flourished as a centre of commerce between east and west. Prosperity ground to a halt with the Communist takeover in 1949.

But allowed economic reforms in 1990, it is now the world's largest port.

Its population of 20 million shop in western-styled stores; sometimes choose fast food over great Asian food and walk among a rich collection of buildings and structures.

We didn't count them, but we were told Shanghai now has more skyscrapers than New York.

The historic Bund, located by the bank of the Huangpu River and an energetic shopping area, is the best place to grab a photo of Shanghai's tallest buildings.

The tree-lined French Concession is a good place to stroll while looking for dinner, while the stunning Shanghai Museum, tracing four millennia of Chinese history, requires a full day's attention.

We took an overnight sleeper back to Beijing. The station was mobbed. I was pleased the Games crowd hadn't yet arrived.

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